


Tentacle Envy

by Caius



Category: Transformers Generation One
Genre: Gen, comparative private parts, on a six-year-old boy level
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-09
Updated: 2011-03-09
Packaged: 2018-10-24 04:55:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10734540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caius/pseuds/Caius
Summary: Daniel wantstentacles!





	Tentacle Envy

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [](http://femme4jack.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://femme4jack.livejournal.com/)**femme4jack** for six-year-old boy beta.

"I want _tentacles_!" Daniel Witwicky, six years old, burst into the laboratory, half in tears.

Wheeljack hastily disconnected his current project from all power sources. They'd never quite managed to childproof--or for that matter, human-proof--the lab, but the Prime had been _quite_ clear on the need for safety procedures.

Come to think of it, why had the door been unlocked?

And what _would_ be necessary to build the child tentacles? He turned around and started working on blueprints.

And then there was a small body clinging to his leg. "Uncle 'Jack! Make me tentacles! Please?"

"I'll see what I can do..." He glanced down at Daniel, looking for possible attachment points. "Do you want fleshy tentacles, or ones like we have?"

"Ones like you!" Daniel said. "I want tentacles just like Hot Rod's!"

Hot Rod--Wheeljack tried to remember where he knew the name from, and what his tentacles were like. Come to think of it, where had Daniel learned about the tentacles? Sparkplug had made them go through a whole lecture on what you Don't Tell Human Children, and tentacles had definitely been on the list. Because of them being analogous to human reproductive machinery, which was--and all the memos and lectures on this subject had never really explained why--taboo in their society.

Ah! He remembered now. Hot Rod was the magenta-and-orange sports car. The one who was just running into the lab after Daniel.

"Daniel! You're not supposed to be in here!" Hot Rod's larger size didn't allow him to navigate the hazards of the lab as easily, and he stumbled over several half-built projects before reaching Wheeljack and Daniel. "Danny...!" He crouched down. "C'mon, we'll go driving, 'k?"

"Don't wanna go driving. Want _tentacles_." Daniel crossed his arms, and Hot Rod stared at him with the helplessness of an Autobots faced with someone small and delicate and utterly intractable.

"I'm, um, sorry, Wheeljack?" Hot Rod attempted. "I know we're not supposed to be here, I didn't realize he'd react like that...!"

"No, not at all," Wheeljack waved a hand with a stylus in it. "It's a really interesting project...somewhat outside my area of expertise, of course, but a fascinating technology...!"

"So you'll make me tentacles?!" Daniel said.

"Of course--!"

"...What's going on in here?" Sparkplug walked in from the next room, leaning rather heavily on the furniture. He'd refused all of their attempts to build him cybernetic replacements for his aging parts. "Daniel?"

"Wheeljack is going to make me tentacles!" Daniel said, excitedly.

Sparkplug gave both Wheeljack and Hot Rod a Look.

"Um," Hot Rod said. "We were just leaving, really, I know we're not supposed to be in here!"

"Never mind that for now." Sparkplug looked down at Daniel; these days, he couldn't get down to the child's level any more than Hot Rod could. "Danny--you're a human, like your parents, like me. And it's a fine thing to be."

"...But I want tentacles!" Daniel pouted.

"You know what your parents say about that." Sparkplug levered himself over to a human-sized chair and sat down slowly, looking Daniel in the eye.

"They didn't say _anything_ about tentacles!" Daniel said. "Roddy has _awesome_ ones, show Grandpa, Roddy!"

Hot Rod just looked nervous. Wheeljack's mind wandered, back to the mechanics of integrating new parts into a human body. They'd done work on it before, with Chip, and then for the improvements Sparkplug refused to let them make, but never for quite this, and not on a kid.

"You know what they said about wheels, Daniel." Sparkplug said, sternly. "And wings. And a trailer of your own."

Daniel pouted. "Not until you're older. I know. You won't even let me have a _jetpack!_ "

"You're still growing, Daniel. Try to become a man before making yourself into a machine." He reached out his arms for his grandson, but the boy clung to Wheeljack instead.

"I'm not going to be a man! I'm going to grow up to be an Autobot. Like Roddy!" Daniel crossed his arms. "You'll see!"

Sparkplug sighed, and shook his head. "Give it a try, Daniel. Try being human, for your Mom and Dad and me?"

Daniel looked down. "And where _are_ Mom and Dad? Off with the robots, right?"

"They both have important jobs, but it doesn't mean they don't love you just the way you are." Sparkplug glanced up at Wheeljack for a moment, helplessly.

Wheeljack was trying to figure out a way of hooking up tentacles to the human spinal cord, but he broke off to look back at his old friend. His very old friend. "I love you as a human, too, Danny."

"Me too!" Hot Rod said. "And I thought your penis was totally cool."

Wheeljack smothered a snort at the human etiquette violation--clearly Hot Rod _had_ missed that memo. Sparkplug just sighed.

Daniel loosened his grip on Wheeljack's leg. "Really? But it's so tiny and I can't move it at all without holding it."

"But you can make water come out of it! I can't do _that_." Hot Rod reached out a hand for Daniel. "C'mon, let's see if you can write your name with that thing!"

Sparkplug sighed. "Just don't do it out front, boys."

"I still want tentacles," Daniel muttered, but he climbed into Hot Rod's hand easily enough and seemed resigned to his human plumbing.

Wheeljack looked back at his blueprints. Maybe he could make tentacles that could release fluid? Something like the attachments Ironhide had...

Sparkplug sighed. "Sometimes I worry about that boy."

"Hmm, do you think from the hips, or maybe the shoulders?" Wheeljack made some adjustments to the design.

"Not until he's eighteen, you don't." Sparkplug snapped. "Don't you have work to be doing?"

"...Right, right, the cybernetic ballista!" Wheeljack turned back to the equipment he'd hastily stowed away earlier. Now where was he?


End file.
